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Denis Grisak, the man behind the Internet-connected garage opener Garadget, is having a very bad week. Grisak and his Colorado-based company SoftComplex launched Garadget, a device built using Wi-Fi-based cloud connectivity from Particle, on Indiegogo earlier this year, hitting 209 percent of his launch goal in February. But this week, his response to an unhappy customer has gotten Garadget a totally different sort of attention.
On April 1, a customer who purchased Garadget on Amazon using the name R. Martin reported problems with the iPhone application that controls Garadget. He left an angry comment on the Garadget community board:
Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iphone app, powered phone off/on - wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here...
Shortly afterward, not having gotten a response, Martin left a 1-star review of Garadget on Amazon:
Junk - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY - iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products.
Grisak then responded by bricking Martin's product remotely, posting on the support forum:
Martin,
The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty, only demonstrates your poor impulse control. I'm happy to provide the technical support to the customers on my Saturday night but I'm not going to tolerate any tantrums.
At this time your only option is return Garadget to Amazon for refund. Your unit ID 2f0036... will be denied server connection. [Ed's Comment: As of Apr 5, Garadget have apologised for this action and have restored connectivity]
The exchange then went viral, being picked up by the Twitter account @internetofshit and rising to the top of Hacker News.
Source: ArsTechnica
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:39PM (14 children)
Well, I "love the idea of a company fucking over a customer who gives them a bad review"! Without jackass stunts like this, people will continue to buy cloud-controlled hardware without thinking about what that actually means, in terms of who really controls your garage door (or whatever). This company is heroically taking a pretty big PR hit, in order to improve our society's awareness of what a shitty bargain cloud-based IoT gadgets are; I thank them for it!
Yeah, obviously they're not doing it for that reason, but
even though I sympathize with the poor sucker locked out of his garage,I'm honestly very glad this happened.You know what? I typed that, but on second thought, I don't really sympathize with him. People who buy garage door openers that will only work as long as the manufacturer keeps a server running, and your account unlocked, are idiots who deserve to be locked out of their garages; companies who sell that junk are idiots who deserve to fail horribly in the backlash of a short-sighted jackass retaliation for a bad review. It's the circle of idiotic life, and they deserve each other!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 06 2017, @06:00PM (13 children)
Alright. Question. Have you shopped for a garage door opener? I'm not curious enough to shop around to find the answer to this question, but - how many garage door openers are IoT, and how many are not? The way things are trending, I imagine that it may be difficult to find a garage door opener that is NOT IoT.
Personally - I wonder WTF anyone needs a garage door opener at all? I open and close very large overhead doors, manually, all the time. By "very large", I don't mean airplane hangar doors, but 15 ft high, and 13 ft wide. I won't say that it's effortless, but the effort is negligible. So, WTF does anyone need an electronic helper to open their 8 ft x 8 ft garage door? They need to drag their couch potato asses out of the car, and open the damned door to get some exercise!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @06:20PM (2 children)
Personally - I wonder WTF anyone needs a garage door opener at all?
Only a minority need it (e.g. handicapped, weaker etc).
But many may find it useful in poor weather conditions. I don't have one but I can imagine when there's a huge downpour it's nice to be able to drive into your garage without having to get out to open the garage door.
That said I've heard rumours that garages are not for cars but for other stuff ;).
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday April 06 2017, @10:15PM (1 child)
We had a party when I managed to move stuff around and actually get both cars in our two-car garage, almost a year after we moved in.
People across the street have given up - three cars, none in the garage.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday April 06 2017, @10:35PM
We had a party when I managed to move stuff around and actually get both cars in our two-car garage, almost a year after we moved in.
Snap! Me too, last year.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Wierd0n3 on Thursday April 06 2017, @07:26PM (3 children)
I am shopping for a door-opener, the one in my house is from the 70's, and has NO safety options at all. (as well as buzzing while on standby. Annoying as hell,) Ryobi has one that has smartphone control. also IoT. It prices evenly with standard openers, and comes with a few exra bells.
I have seen Wink has a Opener control, but i stopped using that unit when they "upgraded" my hub and bricked it. Took them 3 weeks to email me and say they were sorry. and would replace it, but by then, i had returned the unit.
A quick amazon search says that just about everyone and their uncle has a similar solution.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_4_12?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=smart+garage+door+controller&sprefix=smart+garage%2Caps%2C233&crid=1IN97X72SQQBA [amazon.com]
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday April 06 2017, @09:01PM (2 children)
The one from the 70's should have a safety stop if something is blocking the door. There should be a pull cord to reset the mechanism.
(Score: 2) by Wierd0n3 on Friday April 07 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
the only thing that successfully triggered the safety stop was my trailer hitch on the truck when i first moved in. it has crushed boxes and even destroyed the door a little in its attempts to close over the years.
I know theres a little red button on the front, that may be what you mean, i always thought it to be a calibration button for the open/close positions.
The only "pull" I have is to release the door from the trolley.
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday April 07 2017, @10:53PM
That does sound scary then.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday April 06 2017, @07:42PM
Would Batman get out of his bat-mobile and open his garage door manually? Hell no. He'd time it just right so he could zoom into the garage while barely missing the door as it swings open/closed. Also, if you get out and walk around then a neighbor might see you and want to "chat". "hey, you're good with computers.. right?" OSHI OSHI RUN, Fake Phone call, Anything! Escape!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @08:17PM
I said "garage door opener", but I was actually over simplifying. Garadget's product is literally an internet-connected relay (plus sensors to detect the door's current state) that connects to your existing garage door opener; the whole point of this is to remotely command your garage door over the internet instead of or in addition to locally commanding your garage door with pushbuttons.
So if one buys this product at all, we can assume one already owns, or is buying simultaneously, a non-IoT, boring, dumb garage opener, and one is thinking about how to connect it to the internet. If one's thinking on this topic doesn't involve things like "which entities do I have to trust for this functionality to work at all", "which entities does this solution require me to trust", etc., well, maybe next time it will.
I would be sympathetic, if it was a situation like you're suggesting, where someone buying an opener who didn't especially want their garage door on the internet in the first place got that feature thrown in; it's understandable that they wouldn't think it through, would come to rely on it, and then would be unpleasantly surprised when it stopped working. But with a product specifically for adding internet connectivity...
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 06 2017, @10:19PM (1 child)
So, WTF does anyone need an electronic helper to open their 8 ft x 8 ft garage door? They need to drag their couch potato asses out of the car, and open the damned door to get some exercise!
Do you own a car? WTF do you need a motor vehicle for to get you to work and back? You need to drag your lazy couch potato ass onto a bicycle and ride that to work, rain or shine.
Do you own a washing machine? WTF do you need that for to clean your clothes? You need to drag your lazy couch potato ass outside to a wash basin and wash them all by hand.
Do you own an electric or gas stove? WTF do you need that for? You need to drag your lazy couch potato ass to your backyard, build a fire pit, and burn sticks to cook your food (rain or shine).
Do you have heating in your house? WTF do you need that for? You need to drag your lazy couch potato ass under a blanket and just put up with the cold in the winter, even if it's below zero (F) outside.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 07 2017, @01:18AM
"You need to drag your lazy couch potato ass onto a bicycle and ride that to work, rain or shine."
Honda built my bicycle, and I can and do ride it, rain and shine. I won't ride it when the water turns solid, but otherwise, I'm good.
There's some difference between using electronics to do everything in your house, and using mechanical contrivances to do things that would otherwise be impossible. I CANNOT commute 50 miles each way on foot, or on bicycle.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Friday April 07 2017, @02:22AM
Oddly enough the builder of the houses on the block I live on added as a bonus sliding gates at the bottom of the drive way, manual gates the require you to get out of your car and open them, and then had automatic garage door openers installed. I just leave the gate open all the time but I happily use the automatic garage opener, and the GF just loves being able to open the garage door automagically at night. We hardly ever use the front door of our house as a result.
I am for bricking the programmers of the garage door system, e.g. tossing a brick through their front window. Sticks and bricks break bones, but names only hurt douchebag snowflakes.
#hashtagsR4douchebags #noteverythingneedsalabel
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday April 07 2017, @05:37AM
Personally - I wonder WTF anyone needs a garage door opener at all? I open and close very large overhead doors, manually, all the time.
I'm glad that you are healthy, but what if someone in your house breaks a bone or has a surgery or is about to have a baby? As people are getting older, those things tend to happen (the first two, at least.) Then the answer will become apparent. A person with limited agility will be denied either the use of his car, or the use of his garage. None of that makes any sense if there is an easy way to avoid the complications. The door opener is also expected in garages, and if you don't have one, the value of the house drops by 10x of the price of the thing.
I had a house with a garage a while ago. The door opener was old, and eventually it failed. I bought a new one, DirectDrive, from Home Depot [homedepot.com]. Installed in less than one day. Very quiet, no IoT. Just the usual wireless, plus some buttons. Keypad is also one of available options. Rumored to be one of the best openers on the market, if anyone cares to know my opinion.